Cracks on the Wall and the Faulty Foundation

There is a story I have shared in prior speaking engagements and have used in some writing pieces. It is a derivation of an actual event that happened to a house owned by an aunt and uncle of mine...

Upon returning home from work one day, my uncle noticed a small crack on one of the walls. He had never seen the crack prior to that day, and rightfully assumed it recently formed. To attempt to fix the crack, he used some fresh mortar, and subsequently repainted the wall.

The wall appeared to be back to normal.

Several weeks later, my uncle noticed a new crack on the wall, only this time it was substantially larger than the original. Concerned that something else more problematic was causing the cracking, he called up a contractor to check it out. The contractor arrives on the scene, and says, “Yep, you do have a crack but it may have simply formed from the foundation settling, and nothing more.” He adds, “If you are genuinely concerned, to get a full diagnosis of the situation, you are going to need a specialist to investigate it - a structural engineer. But as this can be costly, I don't recommend using an engineer unless the problem becomes more severe.”

My uncle didn't have several thousand dollars laying around to pay for a structural engineer, especially if the problem proved to be nothing more than settling. He took the contractor's advice, repainted the wall once more, and hoped that would be the end of the cracking.

No such luck.

Within weeks the crack not only reappeared but now it was joined by several more cracks that extended across the length of the entire wall. He had no choice. He finally called in the structural engineer to conduct a full examination over the problem. The engineer arrived on the scene, inspected the wall, inspected the foundation and reports back to my uncle: “Yes, you do have significant cracking on your wall, but your problem isn’t the cracks.”

“Well, what do you mean?” my uncle questions, “I have cracks that now extend across the entire face of the wall.” “If my problem isn’t the cracking, then what is the problem?”

The engineer replied, “You can patch the cracks up and repaint that wall over and over again, but no amount of covering up the cracks is going to fix the problem. The problem isn’t the cracks - it is your faulty foundation. Until you fix your foundation, you will forever have cracks on your walls.”

From the local and personal events of private life, to global and social challenges of the public square, the truth of this parable is inescapable: we will forever be reacting to cracks on the walls, until we finally act on the faulty foundations. I am reminded of this story once more as the great debate continues over what the American healthcare system should be like in the 21st Century, or how should banking institutions and hedge funds operate from this day forth, or what is the necessary level of taxation and the budget to address the deficit and national debt, or how should corporations and governments partner to address a host of emerging issues ranging from entitlement shortfalls, education, affordable housing, free speech in non-democratic societies, global conflict, the environment, poverty, resource consumption, drug use, obesity, healthcare, and nuclear weapons.

In each of these areas, we are at the crossroads of crisis because for too long we have applied the expedient patchwork approach to the social cracks, when the solution calls for deliberate and difficult fixing of faulty foundations. In this century of crisis, our generation is granted the unique challenge to address the most pressing problems that will determine if our house will provide a sustainable habitat for generations to come, or if it is to become a shack of shambles.

Peace

Jeremy